2nd/3rd graders (L glasses)Aviella Rose and (R) Sarah Fecher, listen to a story about math problems.Now we are visiting California's first charter, the Charter Learning Center in San Carlos, about a decade old. It's a great school -- but it's not as great and not as diverse, as the non charters in the same area. CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ/CHRONICLE

Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

2nd/3rd graders (L glasses)Aviella Rose and (R) Sarah Fecher,...

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Principal Alex Hunt gets a handshake from Kindergartener Eduardo Fonseca as he and his class pass the principal on his way way to the lunchroom. In Menlo Park, Garfield School, one of the first charter schools, places emphasis on bilingual education and can get around it because they are a charter school. Photo taken on 9/8/04 in Menlo Park, CA.
Lea Suzuki/ San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: Lea Suzuki

Principal Alex Hunt gets a handshake from Kindergartener Eduardo...

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Grecia Cruz shows her drawing for her poem during poetry workshop in Darron Evans 5th grade class as classmates applaud her reading. In Menlo Park, Garfield School, one of the first charter schools, places emphasis on bilingual education and can get around it because they are a charter school. Photo taken on 9/8/04 in Menlo Park, CA.
Lea Suzuki/ San Francisco Chronicle

California children attending charter schools do no better academically than those in regular public school, a Chronicle analysis of 4.7 million test scores shows in a finding that undermines the logic of a federal policy that sees charters as a remedy for low-scoring schools.

The trend held firm even when the scores of only low-income students were compared, suggesting that there may be little merit in the frequent claim that the most challenged students do better academically at charters, which are self-governing public schools.

But charter school students did not perform significantly worse than regular school students, either. Last month, the American Federation of Teachers set off a furious national debate over charter school quality when they showed that fourth-graders at charters significantly trailed their peers on a national test of reading and math.

The California results for 2003 and 2004, a more comprehensive look at student performance, showed that regular school students were slightly more proficient than charter students -- even while testing significantly more low-income students than charters did.

However, charter students progressed slightly faster, according to results from the tough California Standards Test given each spring to grades 2 through 11.

And progress is where charter supporters find hope.

"The fact that charters are improving at a faster rate is a positive sign, " said Jack O'Connell, elected superintendent for California's 6.2 million students -- including about 180,000 students in 537 charter schools. "There are no silver bullet answers in education, including charters. But the promise of charters, one I fully believe in, is that they will help us solve persistent problems."

Performance in charter schools varies widely, and that should not be a surprise. Each charter is unique, sharing little with the others except an underlying premise: that letting schools make key decisions on their own should make it easier to create a high-achieving program that parents will like.

The California test results suggest that premise could be wrong. California's numbers show that family income remains the key predictor, not charter status.

The U.S. Department of Education is handing out millions of dollars to build more charters -- California just got $50 million -- and, for the first time, the federal agency will require many low-scoring schools to hand over control to outsiders or transform themselves into charters, requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The federal push for charters has intensified a decadelong debate.

Last month, the nation's second largest teachers union unearthed national test-score data that reinvigorated skeptics' arguments that public money is wasted on charters. The American Federation of Teachers found, buried deep within government data, unpleasant news for charters: Fourth-graders in regular schools significantly outperformed their charter counterparts in reading and math on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The comparison included 6,000 fourth-graders at 167 charters nationwide.

But those results may have little relevance in California, where teachers might not teach what is on that national test.

So The Chronicle looked at results from the 2003 and 2004 California Standards Test, which measures what students are being taught in class. This broader look included results from 115,682 students in all 393 charters that produced valid scores each year.

In English and math, 48 to 54 percent of students tested in regular schools were low-income, compared to 36 to 39 percent in charters.

The widest performance gap between charters and regular schools on the 2004 test was in math proficiency in grades 2 through 7. (Grades 8 to 11 take a variety of math courses, making comparisons unreliable.)

In regular schools, 41.9 percent of students in grades 2 through 7 scored proficient in math, compared to 36.8 percent in charters.

But charter students improved faster in math since 2003, boosting proficiency by 2.5 percentage points, compared to 1.2 percentage points in regular schools.

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When the same grades (2-7) were compared in English, charter students appeared to do a little better on the 2004 test but in fact were in a statistical dead heat: 37.3 percent of charter students were proficient, compared to 36.6 percent of regular school students.

When all grades (2-11) were compared, regular schools pulled slightly ahead, with 36.1 percent achieving English proficiency compared to 34.5 percent at charters.

But again, charter students improved faster since 2003, raising English proficiency by 2 percentage points compared to slightly less than 1 percentage point at regular schools.

Most kids in the San Carlos center are middle-income English speakers whose parents are college graduates.

Most Garfield kids are lowincome students from Spanish-speaking households whose parents did not graduate from high school.

San Carlos ranks a 10, the top of the state's Academic Performance Index. Garfield ranks a 1, the bottom.

Yet both are charter schools. Both hire their own teachers, choose their own curriculum and are among the two-thirds of California charters without labor unions. Each has its own governing board, organizes its own calendar and serves kindergarten through eighth grade.

And they have hugely different degrees of academic success.

At San Carlos, California's first charter, the staff prides itself on meeting students' individual needs. In teacher Jennifer Spaeth's math class, for example, kids study subjects not by their grade level but by whether they are ready.

"The idea is that students are where they need to be when they need to be there," Spaeth said. In one class, she has seventh- and eighth-graders, some studying pre-algebra, some algebra and others geometry.

Respect for students is another school feature, Spaeth said, adding that she tutors an eighth-grader from another school who recently got detention for going to the bathroom without a pass.

Sandee Althouse, who has two sons at San Carlos, said, "They embrace everybody's individuality."

About 7 miles down the freeway in a working-class corner of Menlo Park sits Garfield Elementary, the state's 49th charter. The school is a beacon for parents who want to learn English, acquire health-care information and educate their children.

"I love Garfield," said Margarita Lopez, who shrugs off its poor test scores and says it's the right school for her sixth-grade son, Arturo. "I really appreciate the sense of community. It may not be too diverse, but the people all take care of each other. And the teachers are wonderful -- very easy to talk to."

Alex Hunt, Garfield's principal through grade 4, said, "We are a school that people want to send their kids to."

Hunt said that as a charter, Garfield is immune from the state's English- only education law, Proposition 227. Only a third of students opt to learn in English.

Perhaps as a result, Garfield students are largely unable to pass the English part of the state test.

Federal law overlooks such differences in charter performance -- under No Child Left Behind, a conversion to charter status is one of four options for schools that fail to raise test scores by a set percentage annually, despite receiving extra help for five years. The others are a takeover by the state or by a private management company or replacement of the entire staff.

California can expect to have 10 stagnant regular schools facing such sanctions this year (nine in Los Angeles and one in Visalia), said Bill Padia of the state Department of Education. In federal parlance, they have failed to make "adequate yearly progress."

"They say, 'Help! I want to become a charter!' " she said. But simply making that transformation "basically gives them five more years of potential failure," Young said.

She points to schools such as Garfield Elementary as evidence. Although no charters are on this year's list of schools facing sanctions, Garfield has not made adequate yearly progress for years, and its deadline is next year. Unless more Garfield kids pass English on the state test, the charter will face sanctions.

So might other charters. In an effort to hold charter schools accountable for progress, a new California law takes effect Jan. 1. Under Assembly Bill 1137, schools will forfeit the right to operate as a charter unless they rank at least 4 on the Academic Performance Index or make adequate progress two years in a row.

Young supports the law.

"When a school is failing academically," she said, "it needs to be put under new management -- one with a track record of achievement, charter or otherwise."